ABC Records

For unofficial releases/counterfeit/bootlegs, please use ABC Records (5).
Use ABC Recording Studios for the recording location.

In 1955, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theaters, Inc. formed a subsidiary company called Back Beat (2) among others.

In July 1965, the label began to move away from the "ABC-Paramount" branding by adopting the logo of parent company ABC Records, Inc..

The Seventies saw ABC having success with rock bands such as The Barbara Mandrell leading its charge on Music Row.

In 1968, ABC created the Probe label, a progressive rock label managed by its Command division; three years later, it was shut down in the US but the label (with a slightly modified logo) was used for releasing its product outside North America via EMI.

Beginning in 1974, the British label RCA in the British market. By 1975 however, ABC ended the deal and opened its own UK branch with its own distribution.
Please note that many of the 1974 and later ABC releases in the UK are in fact reissues of albums previously issued on Stateside and/or Probe, but still show the original copyright dates on the labels. Further checks should be made to see if there are previous versions of the release.

In Canada, ABC was handled by MCA Records (Canada).

On January 31, 1979, ABC Records (which by then was suffering financial problems) was sold to MCA Records and briefly operated as an MCA imprint before it ceased to exist as a record label in March 1979; a number of popular ABC catalog titles were then reissued on MCA.

The ABC Records catalog is today mostly divided among five Decca Broadway (musical theater cast recordings that were released on ABC).